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breathwish wrote:Neighborhoods is miles ahead lyrically and in its guitar work, as well as being closer to blink's best sound. In addition, it isn't a pathetic attempt by 40 year olds to capture a sound that they had 15 years ago and talk about girls and how they party on weekends and are teenage satellites, whatever the fuck that means. They also wrote all the material, instead of relying on songwriters that have no business being involved. Neighborhoods has its issues, but a lot less than California.

Basically this.

scoobs wrote:This forum is a serious bummer to read now. Everyone hates everything. You guys are absolutely no fun.

It is a bit, sorry man. its weird cuz a lot of fans love the record, clearly they're just not here.

scoobs wrote:This forum is a serious bummer to read now. Everyone hates everything. You guys are absolutely no fun.

Alright, scoobs, you tell me what you want. What do you want? What makes a forum more "fun?" What the hell do you want people to do? Just celebrate and be happy for no reason other than "BLINK IS BACK YEAHHHH" ?

If you thought the exodus of Tom and a new album full of candy was going to suddenly shift the tide of a jaded & opinionated fan forum, think again. All is not lost, however. If blink puts out an EP with music that's actually, ya know, got meaning and poignancy instead of John Feldmann's dick being crammed in our ears, I think you'll see this forum re-enter a happy place.

Maybe Im just mega jaded, but I think we can all agree that won't happen. No matter what blink puts out there will be some mega heavy criticism. But maybe thats the beauty of this fourm. People try not to let the fact its "blink-182" cloud their judgement....

Broccoli_Apocalypse wrote:I can agree with the fact that my experience with blink may be extremely different, but, when you look at it from a broader perspective, it's not that different. All you need to do is look at it from the POV of someone who has been a fan of blink since the Cheshire Cat days and was with the band throughout their career as they evolved multiple times. It should be noted that, many of the kids I was friends with at the time (who may have liked blink), all jumped ship at various times. Every single one of them all hated blink by the time untitled came out. Now, while their reasoning was probably that they sold out, which is completely understandable especially from Dude Ranch to Enema, you don't have to view my reasoning for disliking untitled as well as theirs through a different lens. Basically put, the more change you experience of something you enjoy, the less likely you'll end up liking it with each consecutive change. It's very much like a relationship. It's very rare for high school sweethearts to stay together throughout the years because there is so much change that both persons will be experiencing. But if you meet someone during or after college, it's much more likely you'll stay together because most of the changing has already been done. There's a reason why many current blink fans are those who came onto the blink ship much later in the band's career.

Serious question: how old are you? Not to hate but out of serious interest. I’m turning 28 in 2.5 weeks and I consider myself to be a pretty old school blink fan. I became a fan of blink in early ’02, somewhere between TOYPAJ’s release and BCR (bought enema in 1999 when I was 10 but only for WMAA). I’m guessing you became a fan even earlier. TOYPAJ and Enema where my first blink records. Those albums where my point of reference; the albums that defined blinks sounds. I guess that’s why I always, until this day, preferred blinks poppier sound (SOOHM, BTD, Cynical and Bro rhap are the only songs I can stomach on this album). I remember buying Cheshire cat and Buddha from some obscure record shop on the other side of the country and being pretty disappointed with the lack of production quality. Dude Ranch I liked better, but still not as much as TOYPAJ or Enema. Untitled was the first blink release I witnessed as a fan. If you really became a fan during the Buddha/Cheshire Cat days, I can understand why Untitled was too much change. For me, Untitled was the first blink release I experienced as a true fan (barring BCR which I loved); not as much change I guess. I remember feeling a little weird about it. Since I only became a fan about 1.5/2 years earlier, I still craved the poppy blink sound which it pretty much lacked (loved here’s your letter), so I still listened to Enema and TOYPAJ a lot more. The thing about me is that I can recognize something for being good, even though I may not like it as much as something else. Untitled was, and still is, much better than anything blink did before because they dared to change and experiment with the utmost confidence (I know you still think it was all just Tom forcing it). The result was something magical. Funny thing is now that I’m about the age the blink guys where when they released Untitled, I’m starting to appreciate it even more. If you really became a fan much earlier on, I may not agree with you but I think I get where you’re coming from.

With that said, Untitled has EVERYTHING to do with this album. When you put everyone of blink's many changes into consideration, untitled was the greatest leap away from their core. Meanwhile, California is their first release since untitled to really reach back towards their roots and (from my perspective) a full recovery from said transition. And when you compare California to all of their releases since untitled, it is the most drastic change in sound. In other words, both untitled and California represent a drastic change in sound and should be compared as such.

No it wasn’t. There IS no core to blink. There are some fluid yet defining elements to blink but that’s it and they have little to do with their sound. If you listen to all blink albums chronologically, you start to detect change as early as Dude Ranch where their sound and lyrics already started to sound more ‘adult.’ All their albums have been absolutely 100% natural evolutions. Untitled was a big leap but it wasn’t unique. It was the first album they released as adults. The first album they released since they all got married and had kids. That is a HUGE thing. Tom said it many times: you do a lot more changing between 25-35 than you do between 15-25 (or something like that). I remember understanding him when I was 18 and I do so even better now I’m almost 28. That transition is perfectly embodied by untitled. Its rife with angst and the insecurities of ‘truly’ growing up. All pop punk bands had such albums: NFG, Sum 41, Simple Plan, Good Charlotte, you name ‘em. If blink would have released another album singing about being Kings of the Weekend back then it would not have been credible. That’s why it’s so much worse now.

And that’s the point: California indeed represents a drastic change but people feel it’s not genuine. The entire album just feels forced, fake and disingenuous. It’s not a return to some supposed core; there never was one. It’s a return to a sound some people feel represents blink. Many bands have tried to ‘return to their core’ and literally all of them have failed. It necessarily entails imitating something (even though its yourself) instead of being genuinely creative. What makes this case even worse it that they didn’t just force themselves, they got someone in from outside to help force them even more. THIS album is blink truly selling out.

And, no, this album isn't only good because every song is split, BUT it is a huge plus BECAUSE we're talking about blink. The very essence of what made blink great was the shared vocals. There's a reason why many fan favorites are Man Overboard, Pathetic, Stay Together, etc. etc. Blink was a band that featured two drastically different sounding singers who, when both sang together, created something truly special and unique. Blink began losing that in untitled. And continued to lose it in Neighborhoods. And that loss almost became wholly complete with the EP.

California is, as I have articulated many times, a recovery album. It is a band trying to find their way back to what made them magical in the first place. Yes, the guitars were always unique, but if you were going to pinpoint one thing that truly made blink magical, it would be the vocals. (Mind you, you can't change EVERYTHING with just ONE album. You have to take it in steps, which this album did beautifully.) The fact that they split every song was drastically needed. They needed to show that, yes, we understand what blink was and what blink should be. Let's take that and take it to town. They needed to do that. They don't have to do it again on future releases. But if they do, it will definitely be welcome.

Like I said: no it wasn’t. Blink’s shared vocals was very important to their success (mostly the difference in vocals) but it was never the essence of what made them great. In fact, most, if not all of my favorite blink songs are non-split songs. Every song being a split is yet another example of how fake and forced this album is and it needs little explaining. Some people think that was what blink was about so why not split all of the damn songs? Blinks magic cannot be reduced to simply their vocals being shared or only their guitar work. It was a combination of things; something intangible. That’s why so many school blink fans are so disappointed by this album. We miss something about that Mark/Tom combo but we don’t know exactly what. The irony is that in thinking it knows, this album doesn’t recover to anything, but instead becomes a fucking caricature. It has ‘we know what blink was and want to return to that’ all over it. Songs should be split because they sound better when they are, something blink used to understand perfectly, not because its more marketable.

You say that on this album, the lyrics are straight-up embarrassing. I would disagree, but that is more subjective than anything else (even though most of my response is). The lyrics are INTENSELY sarcastic and ironic, giving them a layer that most, if not every blink song previous to this, lacked. You can have imagery in a song. You can have metaphors. But when you bring literary techniques into songwriter, it ups the ante, and this is the first time that blink has, to my knowledge, done this so well. That said, I do agree with the Na Na's, but only on No Future. The rest just blend in with their respective songs.

I’m not even going to discuss this (in fact there’s little to discuss). If you want to call the drivel on this album irony and sarcasm that’s cool but I refuse to lie to myself like that to try and defend something. Disingenuous and a lack of creativity once again sums it all up. Nananana, whohoho!

And I don't understand why the vocal harmonies being the reason why the guitar is being pushed backwards is the biggest load of BS you've heard in a long time. Creating a well-produced album involves a balance. While you can push the vocals and the guitar-work into the limelight, it becomes too dissonant, with each layer from each guitar and every vocal part becomes a competition. As a metal fan, whose music is generally more complex guitar-wise and which also has more diverse vocals when done correctly, I see this as an area where many bands fail. I feel that subtly is what truly makes a great album and embellishing only at key points in an album.

Right, balance, and there is none! This album is all about the shared vocals and trying to sound as generically pop punk as possible. There is literally not a single interesting or creative guitar riff on this album. Remember how we talked about what made blink blink? This is one of those elements for me. You genuinely cannot be an old school blink fan and sit here telling me you like the guitar work on this album. Nothing guitar wise on this album sounds anything like blink. Disingenuous and a lack of creativity.

That being said, if you listened to what Matt said about his contributions, he didn't want to be a carbon copy of Tom. He didn't want to disrespect Tom when making the album, but he wanted to give blink his own take on the band. Blink is an offshoot of punk. Even though blink always dabbled on the unique side of riffs, they come from punk. And the fact that this album is filled with power chords was definitely a great idea. Again, this an album about finding their roots. And part of that was playing fucking punk rock songs. Now, again, just playing power chords could get boring if there is nothing else. But that's where, once again, the vocals come in, with the intricate harmonies and the intense split between both singers. It definitely compensated. That's why Nofx has been such a successful punk band .... because they do the same thing. They play straight-up punk rock but jazz it up with Fat Mike basically singing harmony to every point in a song, and it compensates for the monotony that a punk song can suffer from.

I basically discussed this above. I don’t care about punk, I don’t care about NOFX, I care about blink. Filling this album with power chords because, supposedly, that’s what punk music sounds like is fucking wrong. If you want to talk about those supposed non-existent roots again, old school blink was ALL about fast and creative riffs, and hardly about power chords, they were only supporting the riff making the song sounds more ‘full’. So that argument doesn’t hold at all. Those ‘intricate’ vocal splits being an excuse for the horrible guitar work is rubbish.

NOW! Everything isn't about the guitar. Or it shouldn't. This is the first album where Mark's bass has gotten to shine. There have been few songs where Mark really stood out on bass. Carousel, the intro to Man Overboard, Fentoozler .... and a handful of others. If you want to talk about riffing, the bass on this album blows everything else that Mark has ever done on the four-string guitar out of the water.

Only quoting this first part because I pretty much agree with you. There is some pretty cool bass work on this album at least for blink standards. Too bad it’s probably the only thing positive about this album.

I'm sorry that many of you (or at least some of you) feel as though this album is just an imitation of an imitation of blink. I'm sorry you feel the creativity is gone, I'm especially sorry of this, seeing as most of this reasoning stems from the guitar work. I guess you'll just have to sit and pout just as I have been doing for years. This album, as I said was a recovery album. They recovered. They fucking recovered hard. And now they're going to rip everyone a new asshole.

Don’t get me wrong, I despise this album, but if you genuinely haven’t enjoyed most of what blink has done over the past 13 years you deserve finally liking something they do. I guess now it’s our time to sit back and wallow. It sucks but its not that bad honestly. I pretty much accepted blinks death after the silence following neighborhoods and they released enough good music to keep me going before California and we still have Tom releasing something better evey now and then.

I still like the album. Brocc we can jam out together in defiance of the haters. According to Tom thats the "Punk Rock" thing to do. When you think about it. If this is the album the "Hardcore", "oldschool" blink fans didn't want. But this was the album that Mark, Matt and Travis wanted to make. Then this may very well be the most "Punk Rock" album they ever did. Not following what the fans wanted, not following what anyone else wanted. Doing their thing and having fun doing it.

I've come to the conclusion that discussing quality of an album, whose is favorite in a fourm is as constructive as having a baseball game between two teams full of blind people. Some people will find it funny, some people will get offended and mad. But most importantly no one would get anywhere. Once info spurs about the new EP there will be more interesting things to discuss and find around here.

Broccoli_Apocalypse wrote:I can agree with the fact that my experience with blink may be extremely different, but, when you look at it from a broader perspective, it's not that different. All you need to do is look at it from the POV of someone who has been a fan of blink since the Cheshire Cat days and was with the band throughout their career as they evolved multiple times. It should be noted that, many of the kids I was friends with at the time (who may have liked blink), all jumped ship at various times. Every single one of them all hated blink by the time untitled came out. Now, while their reasoning was probably that they sold out, which is completely understandable especially from Dude Ranch to Enema, you don't have to view my reasoning for disliking untitled as well as theirs through a different lens. Basically put, the more change you experience of something you enjoy, the less likely you'll end up liking it with each consecutive change. It's very much like a relationship. It's very rare for high school sweethearts to stay together throughout the years because there is so much change that both persons will be experiencing. But if you meet someone during or after college, it's much more likely you'll stay together because most of the changing has already been done. There's a reason why many current blink fans are those who came onto the blink ship much later in the band's career.

Serious question: how old are you? Not to hate but out of serious interest. I’m turning 28 in 2.5 weeks and I consider myself to be a pretty old school blink fan. I became a fan of blink in early ’02, somewhere between TOYPAJ’s release and BCR (bought enema in 1999 when I was 10 but only for WMAA). I’m guessing you became a fan even earlier. TOYPAJ and Enema where my first blink records. Those albums where my point of reference; the albums that defined blinks sounds. I guess that’s why I always, until this day, preferred blinks poppier sound (SOOHM, BTD, Cynical and Bro rhap are the only songs I can stomach on this album). I remember buying Cheshire cat and Buddha from some obscure record shop on the other side of the country and being pretty disappointed with the lack of production quality. Dude Ranch I liked better, but still not as much as TOYPAJ or Enema. Untitled was the first blink release I witnessed as a fan. If you really became a fan during the Buddha/Cheshire Cat days, I can understand why Untitled was too much change. For me, Untitled was the first blink release I experienced as a true fan (barring BCR which I loved); not as much change I guess. I remember feeling a little weird about it. Since I only became a fan about 1.5/2 years earlier, I still craved the poppy blink sound which it pretty much lacked (loved here’s your letter), so I still listened to Enema and TOYPAJ a lot more. The thing about me is that I can recognize something for being good, even though I may not like it as much as something else. Untitled was, and still is, much better than anything blink did before because they dared to change and experiment with the utmost confidence (I know you still think it was all just Tom forcing it). The result was something magical. Funny thing is now that I’m about the age the blink guys where when they released Untitled, I’m starting to appreciate it even more. If you really became a fan much earlier on, I may not agree with you but I think I get where you’re coming from.

With that said, Untitled has EVERYTHING to do with this album. When you put everyone of blink's many changes into consideration, untitled was the greatest leap away from their core. Meanwhile, California is their first release since untitled to really reach back towards their roots and (from my perspective) a full recovery from said transition. And when you compare California to all of their releases since untitled, it is the most drastic change in sound. In other words, both untitled and California represent a drastic change in sound and should be compared as such.

No it wasn’t. There IS no core to blink. There are some fluid yet defining elements to blink but that’s it and they have little to do with their sound. If you listen to all blink albums chronologically, you start to detect change as early as Dude Ranch where their sound and lyrics already started to sound more ‘adult.’ All their albums have been absolutely 100% natural evolutions. Untitled was a big leap but it wasn’t unique. It was the first album they released as adults. The first album they released since they all got married and had kids. That is a HUGE thing. Tom said it many times: you do a lot more changing between 25-35 than you do between 15-25 (or something like that). I remember understanding him when I was 18 and I do so even better now I’m almost 28. That transition is perfectly embodied by untitled. Its rife with angst and the insecurities of ‘truly’ growing up. All pop punk bands had such albums: NFG, Sum 41, Simple Plan, Good Charlotte, you name ‘em. If blink would have released another album singing about being Kings of the Weekend back then it would not have been credible. That’s why it’s so much worse now.

And that’s the point: California indeed represents a drastic change but people feel it’s not genuine. The entire album just feels forced, fake and disingenuous. It’s not a return to some supposed core; there never was one. It’s a return to a sound some people feel represents blink. Many bands have tried to ‘return to their core’ and literally all of them have failed. It necessarily entails imitating something (even though its yourself) instead of being genuinely creative. What makes this case even worse it that they didn’t just force themselves, they got someone in from outside to help force them even more. THIS album is blink truly selling out.

And, no, this album isn't only good because every song is split, BUT it is a huge plus BECAUSE we're talking about blink. The very essence of what made blink great was the shared vocals. There's a reason why many fan favorites are Man Overboard, Pathetic, Stay Together, etc. etc. Blink was a band that featured two drastically different sounding singers who, when both sang together, created something truly special and unique. Blink began losing that in untitled. And continued to lose it in Neighborhoods. And that loss almost became wholly complete with the EP.

California is, as I have articulated many times, a recovery album. It is a band trying to find their way back to what made them magical in the first place. Yes, the guitars were always unique, but if you were going to pinpoint one thing that truly made blink magical, it would be the vocals. (Mind you, you can't change EVERYTHING with just ONE album. You have to take it in steps, which this album did beautifully.) The fact that they split every song was drastically needed. They needed to show that, yes, we understand what blink was and what blink should be. Let's take that and take it to town. They needed to do that. They don't have to do it again on future releases. But if they do, it will definitely be welcome.

Like I said: no it wasn’t. Blink’s shared vocals was very important to their success (mostly the difference in vocals) but it was never the essence of what made them great. In fact, most, if not all of my favorite blink songs are non-split songs. Every song being a split is yet another example of how fake and forced this album is and it needs little explaining. Some people think that was what blink was about so why not split all of the damn songs? Blinks magic cannot be reduced to simply their vocals being shared or only their guitar work. It was a combination of things; something intangible. That’s why so many school blink fans are so disappointed by this album. We miss something about that Mark/Tom combo but we don’t know exactly what. The irony is that in thinking it knows, this album doesn’t recover to anything, but instead becomes a fucking caricature. It has ‘we know what blink was and want to return to that’ all over it. Songs should be split because they sound better when they are, something blink used to understand perfectly, not because its more marketable.

You say that on this album, the lyrics are straight-up embarrassing. I would disagree, but that is more subjective than anything else (even though most of my response is). The lyrics are INTENSELY sarcastic and ironic, giving them a layer that most, if not every blink song previous to this, lacked. You can have imagery in a song. You can have metaphors. But when you bring literary techniques into songwriter, it ups the ante, and this is the first time that blink has, to my knowledge, done this so well. That said, I do agree with the Na Na's, but only on No Future. The rest just blend in with their respective songs.

I’m not even going to discuss this (in fact there’s little to discuss). If you want to call the drivel on this album irony and sarcasm that’s cool but I refuse to lie to myself like that to try and defend something. Disingenuous and a lack of creativity once again sums it all up. Nananana, whohoho!

And I don't understand why the vocal harmonies being the reason why the guitar is being pushed backwards is the biggest load of BS you've heard in a long time. Creating a well-produced album involves a balance. While you can push the vocals and the guitar-work into the limelight, it becomes too dissonant, with each layer from each guitar and every vocal part becomes a competition. As a metal fan, whose music is generally more complex guitar-wise and which also has more diverse vocals when done correctly, I see this as an area where many bands fail. I feel that subtly is what truly makes a great album and embellishing only at key points in an album.

Right, balance, and there is none! This album is all about the shared vocals and trying to sound as generically pop punk as possible. There is literally not a single interesting or creative guitar riff on this album. Remember how we talked about what made blink blink? This is one of those elements for me. You genuinely cannot be an old school blink fan and sit here telling me you like the guitar work on this album. Nothing guitar wise on this album sounds anything like blink. Disingenuous and a lack of creativity.

That being said, if you listened to what Matt said about his contributions, he didn't want to be a carbon copy of Tom. He didn't want to disrespect Tom when making the album, but he wanted to give blink his own take on the band. Blink is an offshoot of punk. Even though blink always dabbled on the unique side of riffs, they come from punk. And the fact that this album is filled with power chords was definitely a great idea. Again, this an album about finding their roots. And part of that was playing fucking punk rock songs. Now, again, just playing power chords could get boring if there is nothing else. But that's where, once again, the vocals come in, with the intricate harmonies and the intense split between both singers. It definitely compensated. That's why Nofx has been such a successful punk band .... because they do the same thing. They play straight-up punk rock but jazz it up with Fat Mike basically singing harmony to every point in a song, and it compensates for the monotony that a punk song can suffer from.

I basically discussed this above. I don’t care about punk, I don’t care about NOFX, I care about blink. Filling this album with power chords because, supposedly, that’s what punk music sounds like is fucking wrong. If you want to talk about those supposed non-existent roots again, old school blink was ALL about fast and creative riffs, and hardly about power chords, they were only supporting the riff making the song sounds more ‘full’. So that argument doesn’t hold at all. Those ‘intricate’ vocal splits being an excuse for the horrible guitar work is rubbish.

NOW! Everything isn't about the guitar. Or it shouldn't. This is the first album where Mark's bass has gotten to shine. There have been few songs where Mark really stood out on bass. Carousel, the intro to Man Overboard, Fentoozler .... and a handful of others. If you want to talk about riffing, the bass on this album blows everything else that Mark has ever done on the four-string guitar out of the water.

Only quoting this first part because I pretty much agree with you. There is some pretty cool bass work on this album at least for blink standards. Too bad it’s probably the only thing positive about this album.

I'm sorry that many of you (or at least some of you) feel as though this album is just an imitation of an imitation of blink. I'm sorry you feel the creativity is gone, I'm especially sorry of this, seeing as most of this reasoning stems from the guitar work. I guess you'll just have to sit and pout just as I have been doing for years. This album, as I said was a recovery album. They recovered. They fucking recovered hard. And now they're going to rip everyone a new asshole.

Don’t get me wrong, I despise this album, but if you genuinely haven’t enjoyed most of what blink has done over the past 13 years you deserve finally liking something they do. I guess now it’s our time to sit back and wallow. It sucks but its not that bad honestly. I pretty much accepted blinks death after the silence following neighborhoods and they released enough good music to keep me going before California and we still have Tom releasing something better evey now and then.

Oh and did I mention? No Tom no blink!

These posts are deserving of a bit more formal response as opposed to the typical colloquial acronyms so I'll spell it out for you all:

"Travis and I could tour as blink-182 if we wished. We could hire a new guitarist and hit the road. It would be our right, since Tom quit. Of course we have no plans to do that. Blink-182 was the three of us. The whole thing would be very disingenuous." - Mark Hoppus

I like all of your points Kyle, but I can't agree with "it’s not genuine. The entire album just feels forced, fake and disingenuous." Well, I can agree with the fact that you feel that way. But I don't feel anything forced, fake or disingenuous. I felt it in untitled and even more so with every release afterwards. They were trying to be dark. They recorded the album for ... I don't even know ... but a long ass time. There is one thing trying to make something perfect, but it's a whole other thing, beating the fuck out of an idea until there's nothing left but a hollow shell. I know every member of blink says that they are proud of that record. But, to me, it wasn't natural. I believe some of the best albums are the ones that come immediately to the artist. Yes, you can tweak it up, but usually that first idea is what's golden. When it comes to the guitars on untitled, strangely, I find them lacking. In fact, the intro to Feeling This used to bother me to no end. I felt it lacked the OOMPH of Dumpweed and Anthem Part II until I fell in love with the song. But the first time I heard it, it just felt shallow. Even Stockholm Syndrome bored the fuck out of me for a while. I could go on and on.

So, when comparing untitled to California, everything, to me, feels natural for the first time. They were ideas that were BAM, done right on the spot. They were natural.

Sure, the guitars could be more intricate, but, to me, blink lost that years ago. I haven't felt the magical guitar tone since TOYPAJ. There are a few licks that are cool on untitled, but nothing really stands out. The intro to Neighborhoods is cool, but that's about it. In short, I don't know why people are freaking the hell out about the guitars when the guitars haven't been there for years. There's been nothing POW-y for years. Plus, if you listen to Alkaline Trio, the guitars have never been fancy. People are freaking out that Matt doesn't sound like how he sings in Alkaline Trio. Well, we have his guitars. Sucks that you can't appreciate that, but oh well.

And lastly, this album is COMPLETELY organic because, like it or not, blink comes from punk. You may not like punk or care, but that's where blink comes from. If I said that this album sounds like Cheshire Cat (by when I said they are returning to form), then I apologize because that's not what I meant. They are going back to their roots, even deeper than in Cheshire Cat and Buddha because, as we all know, blink did more than just power chords. Tom had fun riffs that made the songs stand out that many punk bands didn't do at the time. The fact that blink are doing it now makes the album all the more powerful. Unfortunately, this, in addition to the lyrics on the albums, may make people feel as though they are trying to be something they're not. No. That's not the point of the album. The point of the album is finding out where they came from originally. Tom wanted to move away from punk because he wanted more. He wanted the U2 sound. And blink really was moving in that direction. But now that there is no longer that force, blink now had the freedom to embrace the sound that they were forced to move away from. By embracing these types of songs, with these types of lyrics, makes the whole album cathartic on so many levels for each and every member of the band.

With all that in mind, I feel that this makes this album TRULY organic. Blink weren't try to experiment or do something that didn't come natural to them, which untitled wasn't. This type of music is what comes natural to them. This is what they came up with on the spot.

That's where I'm coming from any way ....

In other words, I guess it sucks that many people can't get past the guitars and past the "fake lyrics." Yes, I enjoyed the guitars to death when I first got into blink. But, to me, the vocals were more important. It was the shared vocals that made blink stand out. It created a dynamic on each and every record. And we lost that for a while. But now it's back. And, in addition to that, I don't feel as though California is what killed the guitars. I feel, again, that it was lost long ago already. I didn't like the new style of guitar playing that Tom has adopted over the years (Ghosts on the Dance Floor stuff) and I love any type of chugging and power chords in punk songs. So, it's all a win-win for me.

This is more than a return to form album because, like I said, blink were never this basic. In a sense, it's more of a concept/experimental album than untitled because they have embraced punk rock in more ways than they ever have in the past. This isn't a throwback album. It's an anthem to the music that created the bands that they love and the band that they love playing in.

I was hanging on by a little thread.Just minutes before I was on a mountain.I screamed "I can see all."The ground broke from the sound.It was all built on nothing.Caution: the solid ground that you are on will slide from under you. -Hot Water Music

True, the first thing that comes to mind is always the best. That's why whenever I turn in a paper, I just use the first thing that I vomited onto the page. That's every great writer/musician/etc.'s advice.

Sig by KayTheMagnificent

"Travis and I could tour as blink-182 if we wished. We could hire a new guitarist and hit the road. It would be our right, since Tom quit. Of course we have no plans to do that. Blink-182 was the three of us. The whole thing would be very disingenuous." - Mark Hoppus

breathwish wrote:True, the first thing that comes to mind is always the best. That's why whenever I turn in a paper, I just use the first thing that I vomited onto the page. That's every great writer/musician/etc.'s advice.

Naturally

Haven't listened to this album in like 2 months nowheard a live cut of Cynical though and I still like that song well enough. Matt was on point.

I should follow that advice. I preach it, but rarely follow it .... lol

Oh well.

I was hanging on by a little thread.Just minutes before I was on a mountain.I screamed "I can see all."The ground broke from the sound.It was all built on nothing.Caution: the solid ground that you are on will slide from under you. -Hot Water Music